Grilling is an all-time favorite activity that has made an indelible mark on cultural traditions in the U.S. especially during holidays such as the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, and Labor Day. Cooking grills are popular for consumers who are avid barbecuers and cookers, as such users may grill burgers and steaks on holidays and all-year round. A variety of cooking grill apparatus exist in the current market, but no grill allows consumers to expand the methods of cooking on their grills, or allows various cooking systems, such as using either direct heating cooking or broiling. For example, if consumers purchase a cooking grill using a direct convective heating cooking system, they cannot use the same grill to cook using primarily radiation, and they cannot transform their pre-existing grill to an indirect heating, radiative cooking system. Consumers are limited in the ways their food may be prepared on a grill, depending on the grill they have.
Direct heating cooking is one of the more common standard cooking systems found in grills in the market. To employ direct heating cooking, the grill is configured by placing a charcoal, electric, or gas heat source directly under the grid on which the food is placed. Heat from one of these heat sources then proceeds by convection to and around the food (and then, typically, out of the grill through a vent in a movable cover). Cooking grills using the standard cooking system of direct heating cooking cannot be transformed easily to indirect, radiative heating cooking, or cooking by direct contact with the food. While direct heating cooking is advantageous for steaks and burgers, such heating may be a disadvantage for consumers wanting to cook smaller foods such as chicken breasts or fish fillets, or larger or very firm foods such as briskets or ribs that would burn if cooked on a grill using direct heating cooking.
Indirect, radiative heating cooking is also a cooking system found in grills in the markets. Radiative heating cooking in a direct heating (convective) system arises because the hood and other parts are warm, or because a user has placed a special-purpose “oven” within their existing grill. However, not all types of food grill well using indirect heating cooking, and convective heating grills do not employ structural elements which also easily allow indirect heating. For example, indirect heating cooking is not well suited for some meats because such meats require additional heat, which benefit from the “sear” created by the higher heat that can be achieved by direct heating cooking. The “ovens” of existing systems, such as the grill disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,853,129 to Char-Broil, are cumbersome and single-purpose devices. Consumers cannot purchase a grill, or transform their grill, or use direct heating cooking if they have an indirect heating system. Therefore, they are limited in the types of food they can prepare, and the effects they can achieve, with a grill using indirect heating cooking.
Broiling is another type of “direct” cooking system found in most ovens, wherein the user places food directly on a grill or on a “grill topper,” with radiative heat directed at the food from above or below. Grill toppers are popular accessories that prevent delicate foods such as seafood and vegetables from falling through a grid during cooking. Grill toppers are placed above the grid and are generally comprised of perforated metal in which the heat is directed from a heat source above or adjacent to the food to be cooked. Broiling can direct intense heat at the food from a heat source directly above the food to be cooked, to quickly sear and cook the food. However, grills are not capable of broiling in the same way an oven can, as an oven is set up with special purpose, overhead burners. Conversely, an oven cooking system configured for broiling cannot be physically transformed to use other types of cooking systems, such as indirect, radiative heating cooking, and therefore such systems are limited in versatility when cooking foods of varying thickness and texture.
Smoking is another popular type of cooking system found in grills. Smoking flavors foods, utilizing barbecue grilling accessories such as smoker boxes. To smoke foods, consumers use these smoker boxes which are popular accessories for grills. In a smoking cooking system, the grill is generally set up so that a smoker box containing wood chips is positioned beside or underneath the barbecue grid such that, when the smoker box is heated, both the flavoring smoke and moistening vapors produced in the box circulate upwards to heat and flavor the food on the grid. Typically, wood chips with various food flavoring effects are placed in the smoker box, and the box then generates smoke when it is heated by the heat source. However, like other grills, grills using a smoking cooking system (with, generally, direct convective heat) is restricted in functional capability to direct convective grilling and smoking. Food cooked on smoking-capable grills cannot be broiled or indirectly heated.
Grills manufacturers have created grilling systems in attempts to address the shortcomings of single-purpose grills, and one such system may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,853,129. However, the grill system disclosed in this reference suffers from one or more the following disadvantages: inability to transform the grills to cooking using direct heating, broiling, or smoking. The apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,853,129 is for cooking with infrared radiation and, more particularly, indirect radiative heating. The apparatus includes infrared energy emitters which are configured above the burner units and below the grids. As a result, consumers are unable to configure the grill of U.S. Pat. No. 7,853,129 to use various types of cooking systems, because consumers are limited to preparation and use of the indirect heating cooking system as directed.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need in the market for versatility in grill cooking methods. The grill of the present invention provides just such versatility by introducing a grill with a plurality of cooking systems in which one grill is capable of using each of these four cooking methods: direct convective cooking, indirect radiative energy, broiling, and smoking.